Thursday, June 4, 2009

Walk This Way

And so your baby springs to his feet and - oops, wait! down? no! up! go! - toddles toward the flowers - wait! stop! flowers! ooh! - and then - hey! up! - toward you toward you toward you - come here baby! - and your heart swells as he pitches forward, all leg-torque and flushed cheeks, your big precious boy using all the power of his newfound mobility to race to you, to fling his little self...

... right past you, right past you, and then, suddenly - ooh, look, ball! - down he goes. And gets up again, and toddles away, not looking back.

And you are torn between two feelings: a fierce pride in your wee determined lad, who is growing so fast, so very fast, and who will no doubt speed - away from you, alone, strong - into a brilliant future, and, also, a terrible, guilty sadness over the fact that, yes, he is growing so fast, so very fast, and he will one day - too soon - speed away from you. And not look back.

And so you settle on a third feeling, another (is it? yes, it is) shameful feeling: a tiny bit of satisfaction that he stumbles, that he will continue to stumble, now and again, as he reaches for the flowers, the ball, the sky. That he needs you. That he will need you for a very long time.

Not forever, but long enough.

(Is it so wrong to want him to slow down? To want to not let go of his hand?)

44 Comments:

Yes! You have a walker! But oh, if it weren't for those stumbles how would we survive knowing they're our last babies?! My little one just turned two and that number hit me so hard (he's a toddler now, ouch!) that I made the older one promise me grandchildren. BTW, he's absolutely precious, he has your hair :).

I'm just thinking of the relief your arms must be feeling at not having to let him hold your fingers for balance as he bounces along. Just a few hours over the course of a weekend was enough to exhaust me; I'm betting you've got fabulous guns now from doing it far more often.

You telling me? The woman who had an existential crisis in a corn field watching her child toddle away from her; the woman who has seriously begun to believe in fairies in some lame attempt to keep her kids believing?

He's gorgeous. And yes, he'll need you for quite some time. Differently at each age, but...I think that kids keep looking for ways to hold on to us, as well. They just don't want to say so out loud.

I'm learning that that feeling, that tiny bit of satisfaction is about all we get to hold on to as they get bigger. My son finishes Kindergarten today. I feel that fierce pride and that sadness, but also, hanging on tightly to that tiny feeling that he still needs me. A little less each day, but still...

You've misinterpreted something. When he speeds away and doesn't look back it's because he won't need to - you'll be so deeply entrenched inside him he'll always have you.

He will *always* need you. Always. I've lost my Mother so perhaps I feel this more deeply but I know how that emptiness feels. You never stop needing your Mother. Your relationship will change, morph into something very different from what it is now, but he will always need you.

You summed up how I feel each time my daughter hits a new milestone, or even in the smaller moments when she learns to say the cat's name and stops calling him "Doowa". Oh, will they need us long enough? Really, somedays I'm just not sure I'll ever really be ready to watch her go out the door calling a different place home. On a lighter note, I guess that is why teens are so difficult. That way we are happy to see them call another place home. I remember when we all went to take my older brother, the first born, off to college. We dropped him off to go up and unlock his dorm room while we found a place to park. As we pulled away, my mom said "get him back in the car, he's not staying". My Dad said "after all the fighing you 2 did this summer, one of you is staying here, and at this point I don't care who". Ha ha. He stayed, and found his way and now has 2 kids and is my hero. My mom enjoys her empty nest and says she loves us but hopes none of us ever move back home. ha ha. I guess it is enough time after all, though as a first time mom whose baby just turned 2, I'm not 100% convinced. At any rate, I loved today's post. Melissa in Durham

**through tears** My sweet boy will be 2 in July. TWO! It seems like just yesterday I was sleep deprived and struggling with nursing this little lump and now -although still nursing and sleep deprived- my little lump isn't so little anymore.

When we had our last daughter I was totally in "keep things moving" mode and I didn't celebrate her little milestones. I figured we would have another baby soon and we would do all those little things again. Turns out she'll probably be our last (I'm having an awesome case of secondary infertility) and I miss so much that I dodn't celebrate and mourn each of those little markers of the passage of time.

Not at all wrong. I am there with you watching my baby girl walking away from me too. It's harder to watch when it's your last baby I think. I don't remember being so sad when my first started walking.

The absolute summary of parenthood is the pride you feel in watching your little ones learn to do things for themselves and the absolute terror of the day they no longer need you.

I have seen three take their first steps, heard three first words, sent two off on their first day of school. I am torn between pride of them, anticipation when my child free independence will be restored and panic that they'll grow up too fast and leave me before I'm ready.

Hey, I just cried my way through the seasonal sorting of baby clothes. I totally want to stop time. I really did cry sorting through the preemie, newborn and 3 months size clothes. I decided to keep them until I can really dump all the six month sized items - I tell my husband it will be easier to give them all away at once, but really I don't want to let them go. I know we have to let them grow up, but we get to feel sad too.

So beautiful, so very true... so sad. I'm so emotional every single day that my boys are growing up too fast, and they're only 3. 5 years old and 16 months old. I fear I will be needing some serious medication to help me cope with their wedding days!

My son...my baby (and it seems like an increasing chance he will forever be my last, which makes me want to cry)(and that's a story in and of itself)...is 7 years old. He is quick footed, glorious, entertaining, and forever trying to escape my clutches as I'm pulling him back to me for just one more kiss to tack onto the 12 I've just bribed out of him.

Anyway, every morning, we walk to the corner together so he can catch the school bus, and each morning, he waits at the door for me, and as we descend the front steps, he reaches over and takes my left hand into his right, and we walk hand-in-hand to the corner and then stay that way until the bus pulls up and he jumps on. Today is the last day of school. Today is the last day I got to hold his hand on this routine of ours I didn't realize how much I cherished. Don't think those last couple sentences were pretty damn hard to type with my eyes as glassed over with tears that I'm trying to blink back!

I'm having a really, really, really hard time with this growing up business.

No, there's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting him to slow down and not let go of your protective hand. The other night I snuck out of the bathroom while my 6 year old son, Jude, was in the bathtub (so I could work on my blog - clearly I am HIS bad mother!). A few minutes later he appeared next to my desk - jammies on, hair combed, and apparently, teeth brushed. "Mama, I squirted the stuff right on my toothbrush ALL by myself!" And I know I should have been so PROUD of him. But I was heartbroken. He had squirted the stuff all by himself. Without me. Sniff.

You know, I think there is something very,very special between mothers and sons...grow.stop.please don't leave.Mothers and daughters generally stay close-even after marriage.But sons tend to fall in love with some beautiful girl and then you are no longer the "woman" in their life. I screamed "but he his a one woman man, and I'M it" when my son got his first girlfriend. I didn't scream out loud, but rather into my pillow and sobbed.And felt jealous, of all things.Both boys are grown now, and they love me-totally love me and tell me so.But I still look at their mates, and under my breath say "bitch". Not because they are by any means, that's just my nature.On the other hand, my daughter's husband is the best thing ever. I've never felt a jealous bone in my body over him-I just feel really sorry for his mother!

They all learn to do it. Incredible really. I remember when my sister's baby was 6 months old. He had just pulled himself up onto his hands and knees and was rocking back and forth as if to start crawling. My sister encouraged him, like any good mother would. "Come on, you can do it, you can do it". Her friend, the mother of an 18 month old, watched this and exclaimed "no, no, no don't encourage him, once they can move by themself your whole life gets worse!".

This little baby is probably 18 by now, my sister's baby is a teenager. They do keep moving forward and afterall, that is what we want for them, BUT, they are a composition of their experiences. You are part of him now. He will carry you everywhere with him. And, it will bring him comfort when he needs it, joy when he needs and always support, guideance and love evidenced in his confidence and ability to connect with others. You are doing a good job. He is a lucky boy. Cute too. But lucky, oh so lucky.